Novgorod Land Research Articles

Новгородские сюжеты и образы в произведениях времени Великой Отечественной войны (по материалам газет 1941–1945 гг.)

The article presents a description of the plots associated with the disclosure of the image of Novgorod in the works that were published in the newspapers of 1941–1945. Lyrical and epic texts published in newspapers distributed on the territory of the modern Novgorod region are considered. The attention is drawn to the various loci of the Novgorod land and plots, driven by the need to defeat the fascist conquerors. The image of Novgorod, which is created in essays, stories and poems after it was liberated from the Nazis in 1944, is studied. For the first time, the paper presents the analysis and interpretation of works of various genres written by professional journalists, officers and soldiers associated with the events of the Great Patriotic War on the territory of the modern Novgorod region, as well as residents of the Novgorod region. Analysis of the works of 1941–1945 opens up new opportunities for the development of Novgorod and understanding the specifics of literary works created in the conditions of war and taking into account the requirements of socialist realism.

Особенности антицерковного террора в Нижегородской губернии и реакции на него епархиальной власти в 1918 – 1921 гг.

The article examines the transformation of relations between the state and the Church in the aspect of the repressive policy of the Soviet government on the example of the Nizhny Novgorod diocese in the period 1918 – 1921. This study reflects issues directly related to the reaction of the church administration to the unfolding full-scale persecution. The author compares the situation in the Nizhny Novgorod diocese with the historical circumstances in other dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church and finds that the Nizhny Novgorod scenario is typical. Nevertheless, there are some features of the historical picture on the Nizhny Novgorod land, due to certain circumstances and personal characteristics of representatives of both secular and Ecclesiastical authorities. This article hypothesizes that the loyal position of the ruling bishop and the diocesan council in relation to the Soviet government did not lead to the cessation of persecution, but contributed to a partial improvement in the state of church affairs in the field. The analysis of the historical situation shows how the degree of loyalty of the diocesan administration towards the new government has changed, taking into account the aggressive pressure from the ruling circles. Russian Russian Orthodox Church. The results of this study can be used in works aimed at studying the history of the Russian Orthodox Church during the period of the beginning of the persecution to obtain a holistic picture of church life, the life of believers in Russia on the example of the Russian province.

История организации и проведения первой рудоискательной экспедиции 1491 года в Арктической зоне Русского государства

In the Middle Ages, the Russian state, formed around Moscow, was in dire need of metals. However, only comparatively poor quality swamp iron was mined on the territory of the Russian principalities. There were no deposits of copper, silver, gold, or any other nonferrous metals, and all these metals had to be purchased abroad, paying mainly in furs. At the same time, the supply of metals was constantly threat-ened by bans from Western countries. In the 15th century, during the reign of Ivan III, under the influence and with the active help of his wife Sophia Palaiologina, the Muscovite state was strengthened and developed, which required more and more financial resources. The development of artillery created a need for large quantities of copper. There was an urgent need for own metal deposits, the search for which began in the vast northern Novgorod lands, annexed to the Moscow state. In 1491, the first state ore prospecting expedition was sent to the Pechora River basin, with the participation of ore explorers from Western Europe, which discovered copper and silver ores on the Tsilma River. The Tsilemskoye deposit was the first developed ore deposit in the history of the Russian state. The first copper smelter was built here. Therefore, 1491 is considered to be the beginning of the mining and metallurgical industry in the Russian state. This expedition marked the beginning of prospecting, exploration and mining in the newly annexed lands of the Urals and Siberia, where new ore deposits were later found, which served to create the mineral resource base of Russia.

From A. A. Zimin’s Scholarly Heritage: The Publication of the Poganaya Kniga

This work publishes a previously unknown paper by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zimin (1920–1980), an outstanding Soviet historian, source study specialist, and archaeographer, discovered in the personal archive of his student Margarita Evgenyevna Bychkova (1936–2014). It is a publication of the so-called Poganaya Kniga prepared following several copies. The Poganaya Kniga is a genealogical pamphlet of the seventeenth century based on the Votskaya Pyatina cadastre from 1500 by scribe Dmitry Kitaev. In the Poganaya Kniga, several noble families were ranked among serfs (kholopy) who received estates in Novgorod Land after its annexation by the State of Muscovy. A. A. Zimin repeatedly referred to this source in his research and, as it transpires, he was preparing its publication. This work was never completed; Bychkova was supposed to continue it as an acknowledged specialist in the textual study of genealogical books. However, having supplemented Zimin’s publication with the variants found in the copies she had identified, she did not publish it for some reason. Considering the scale and scholarly significance of A. A. Zimin’s and M. E. Bychkova’s papers, the author assumes that this publication of the Poganaya Kniga will be of interest to those dealing with source studies and historiography.

Анализ антропологического материала из санитарного захоронения города Владимира XIII века

Introduction. The study of the population formation processes of the city of Vladimir, the capital of the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality, is an important task for archaeologists, historians, linguists and anthropologists. However, materials on the anthropology of the ancient Russian population of this city began appearing relatively recently. The purpose of this work is to publish and analyze data on the pre-Mongolian population of ancient Vladimir. Materials and methods. The work is based on craniological data obtained during the study of a sample from a 13th-century sanitary burial in the historical center of Vladimir. 43 adults of both sexes were studied. Demographic and craniological indicators, as well as skull injuries were analyzed to understand the circumstances of the appearance of a mass grave. Results. The studied complex is a one-time burial of a large number of individuals in the household utility basement of a ground building. The archaeological context of the sanitary burial allows us to confidently date it to the first half of the 13th century. It has been established that 58% of individuals have injuries to the skull bones, which either caused death or were inflicted shortly before death. A comparative statistical analysis involving craniological data from 24 synchronous samples revealed a great similarity of the male studied group with the Balts and Slavs of the Upper Dnieper region. At the same time, a strong difference from rural population of neighboring territories was found. Conclusions. The location and characteristics of the burial, as well as fatal injuries, indicate that the citizens died as a result of a military conflict. The traumatic injuries are similar in nature to those found during the study of other mass graves in ancient Russian cities. Comparative analyzes of craniological features make it possible to link the origin of this population group with the territory of the Upper Dnieper region, through which two waves of migration of Slavic settlers passed during first millennium AD. No influence of migrants from the territory of the Novgorod lands was found. Influence of the local Finnish component on the studied group is also absent.

The Role of Economy in the Early Wars of Novgorod

Novgorod became the mercantile centre of the Northern Rus’ in the 10th century. After the city (or city-state) gained independence from Kiev in 1136, its main aim was to keep this position as its economy was based on trade. Evidently, the military and economic interests of the Novgorodian elite met and determined the city’s war policy. The early period, especially the 12th century was the creation of the “Novgorod Land”, expanding the city’s possessions in all corners of the region. During this expansion, Novgorod conquered local tribes and settlements in north-eastern Europe but instead of incorporating them directly into its realm, the city-state rather maintained taxing centres to get primary products as tribute for the Baltic trade. This expansive period ended around the 1220s when strong new enemies appeared at Novgorod’s borders: “Latin” crusaders in the West and Mongols in the East. Facing these new challenges Novgorod strengthened its dependencies and began to follow new, defensive policy. In this paper, my aim is to introduce the early, expansive period of Novgorod’s history and to highlight the links between the military activities and the economic interests of the city.

Upper Volga and Upper Podvine as part of the Russian State: General and Special Territorial Organization through the Prism of Geoinformation Technologies

The article discusses the results of the application of geoinformation technologies in the study of the historical geography of the Upper Volga and Upper Podvinya of the late XV – first half of the XVII century. The study included the development of historical GIS of Tver, Toropetsky, Rzhevsky, Novotorzhsky, Belsky counties and the Tver half of Bezhetskaya Pyatina. The main sources are scribal descriptions of the end of the XV - the first half of the XVII century, the assembly material is involved. Localization of toponymy of the XV-XVII centuries was made using sources of the XVIII-XIX centuries. The objectives of the study included the characteristics of the territorial organization of the studied territory of the Late Middle Ages and early Modern times, including the localization of territorial administrative units, borders, roads; characteristics of rural settlement, territorial organization of the peasantry in historical dynamics; identification of the features of the historical geography of land ownership in the region. The result of the use of GIS technologies in historical and geographical research, in addition to web GIS of applied importance, is the characteristic of the territorial-administrative and settlement structure of the region, which has both all-Russian and local features. Among the local features are specific types of territorial organization inherited from the pre–Moscow period - digests and dozens that persisted in the XVI-XVII centuries. in the Upper Podvinye and on the southeastern periphery of the Novgorod land. A dispersed settlement system was characteristic of the Upper Volga region, while a "nest" settlement system was identified in the Podvine region. The different nature of the entry into the Russian state determined the peculiarities of the formation of local land ownership in the studied areas. Archaic features are also evident here (in the preservation of official land ownership in the Mikulinsky camp-county).

Variational approach in modeling the rural historical settlement: a model of a two-level hierarchy of centers

The subject of this study is the modeling of the spatial distribution of the medieval population. To take into account the conditions of heterogeneity of the territory in modeling, the author develops a variational approach proposed by S.M. Huseyn-Zadeh. The model is based on the idea of settlement, placement of the population on the territory as a process in which each of its participants is guided in their activities by achieving goals dictated by natural considerations, for example, maximum accessibility to their cultivated area, maximum proximity to the central settlement (center). Using the methods of calculus of variations and the concept of Pareto optimality within this approach makes it possible to identify and numerically describe the relationships between the optimal parameters of the system. In the previous paper, the author proposed a model of a one-level hierarchy of the placement of centers (central settlements). Additional analysis of historical material leads to the need to refine the model, namely, adding a hierarchy of centers to it. In this regard, this paper proposes a model of spatial placement with a two-level hierarchy of centers. The approbation of the proposed model is carried out on the material of the scribal books of the Shelonskaya Pyatina of the Novgorod land of the end of the XV century. The high degree of conformity of the obtained theoretical and empirical data allows us to consider mathematical modeling as an adequate and convenient auxiliary tool in studying the nature and dynamics of historical rural settlement systems. The possibilities of the proposed modeling also in terms of filling data gaps are demonstrated by the example of the task of reconstructing the approximate population of the Shelonskaya Pyatina of the considered time period.

Land ownership in the Bezhetskaya Pyatina (Tver Region) at the end of the Novgorod independence period: localization in GIS

The article gives the historical and geographical characteristics of the Novgorod land ownership on the territory of the the Bezhetskaya Pyatina in Tver Region. The main sources of the research are the scribal books of 1498/99 and 1545 years. The work was carried out using geoinformation technologies based on the previously performed localization of toponyms of scribal descriptions of 1498/99 and 1545. Using the Voronoi Polygons module and further combining polygons on the basis of belonging to a specific landowner, an idea was obtained about the spatial location of the land holdings of the Novgorod boyars, residents, fellow countrymen, monasteries and the Novgorod archbishop in the churchyards-districts of Pyatina. The web gis is available on the Internet on the website of the Laboratory of Historical Geoinformatics of the IVI RAS. The composition of landholdings (a single territory or separate enclaves) is analyzed. Localization made it possible to establish that a number of relatives' possessions were located compactly, which made it possible to identify family possessions belonging to Yuryev, Ovinov, etc., dating back to large single patrimony of common ancestors. The largest by area were the vladychnaya volost of Udomlya and the volost of Ivan Loshinsky's Slezkino. There is also excessive land ownership by the end of the period of independence of Novgorod. The concentration of small landholdings of foreigners and those living in the west of Pyatina, in the Mlevsky churchyards, was also revealed. The data obtained as a result of the use of gis technologies on the size of land holdings were compared with information on the number of settlements in them from scribal books. The population indicators obtained for the most fully localized volosts on average amount to 0.4-0.7 settlements per 1 sq. km. The territories with the highest (in the south of Pyatina and in the basins of the Medveditsa and Mologa rivers and their small tributaries) and the lowest (in the north) indicators of population were identified. After the annexation of Novgorod to Moscow, almost all landholdings were confiscated and distributed to estates that were not comparable in size to the old volosts.

New Finds of Frescoes in St George’s Cathedral of the Yuriev Monastery and Teams of Painters in the Novgorod Land of the First Half of the 12th Century

The archaeological expedition led by Vl. V. Sedov discovered thousands of fragments of the original painting around 1130 in the St George Cathedral of the Yuriev Monastery in Novgorod during the 2013–2020. Recent finds of fragments of remarkable frescoes in the Yuriev Monastery, as well as in the Church of the Annunciation on the Hillfort from the beginning of the 12th century, significantly expand the traditional understanding of early art in Veliky Novgorod. These murals allow us to consider in a new way the problem of the work of painters’ teams, their migration and succession in the Novgorod land of the first half of the 12th century. Just as the architecture of St George’s Cathedral is the pinnacle of Novgorod architecture, so its frescoes demonstrate the unusually luxurious order of Prince Vsevolod and an outstanding artistic quality. A special team was to be called up for the decoration of the St George Cathedral. Its work continued the tradition of princely Novgorod churches of the first quarter of the 12th century. Probably, the team was called to Novgorod from Kiev, it could consist of artists from Constantinople or be mixed with Kiev painters. Five teams could work in the churches in the Novgorod land during the first half of the 12th century. Possibly they were called up from the workshops of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev. The participation of Byzantine artists in those teams was not excluded. The style of the Novgorod murals is not homogeneous, and they were created by painters of several generations. There’s no information about the existence of a local Novgorod team of painters in the first half of the 12th century.

Investigation of building materials from Staraya Ladoga (Novgorod Land) by the method of polipolarization

В статье рассматриваются результаты анализов строительных растворов Староладожской крепости и плинф из церквей Старой Ладоги и Новгорода, проведенных на оптико-электронной полиполяризационной системе, разработанной в ИИМК РАН.

Ценностные векторы отечественной словесности: Нижегородский текст русской литературы

The article analyzes the current trends in the field of “supertext” studies, summarizes the reflection on the “Nizhny Novgorod text of Russian literature,” as well as border chronotopes, carried out in the period from 2007 to the present. Authors of the article indicate the main directions of research, such as the identification and description of the sacred toposes of the Nizhny Novgorod land, the comprehension of the value vectors of Russian literature, which were configured in a number of stable images: the images of the city of Kitezh, the Volga, the Diveevsky and Sarov sacred toposes, the image of Seraphim of Sarov. The review article presents the representative characteristics of the national-regional component. Theese features establish the relationship of creativity with the cultural and historical geospace, which appears as the spiritual homeland of the writer (protopop Avvakum, M. Gorky, E. Chirikov, etc.). An important component of literary discourse is the national image-character, which retains positively marked, sometimes ideal features (from the life of Alexander Nevsky to the heroes of E. Dolmatovsky’s “Sormovskaya Lyric”). The article outlines prospects for further research.

Семейные связи землевладельцев Устюженского уезда Колюбакиных, Линевых и Долгоруковых в XVII–XIX веках

The article is devoted to the consideration of regularities in the process of formation of regional landowning families in the territory of Ustyuzhna Uyezd in the 17th–19th centuries. The study takes into account the mutual ties between the clans, using the example of the landowning families of the Kolyubakins, the Linevs, and the Dolgorukovs. It was revealed from which administrative-territorial formations (pyatinas of the Novgorod Lands) and for what reason the landowning families of Kolyubakins, Dolgorukovs, and Linevs were resettled to Ustyuzhna-Zhelezopolskaya Uyezd at the beginning of the 17th century. The facts of relationships and family ties between the families of landowners under consideration are identified and the reasons for the emergence of these ties are analyzed on the basis of the analysis of a number of documents from the fonds of the Heralds office (F. 286), Pomestnyi Prikaz (F. 1209), and the Ustyuzhna Voivodeship Chancellery (F. 596) in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, which are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, as well as of the results of the research on the history of the ancient Kolyubakin family, conducted by the author. It is shown that the family ties of the Kolyubakins, Linevs and Dolgorukovs led to the redistribution of landed property between these clans due to its transfer as a dowry or inheritance by collateral by nephews and grand-nephews from maternal lineage. In the course of the research, the Ustyuzhna branch of the noble family of Dolgorukov is reconstructed, including five generations of descendants, and covering the period from the end of the 16th century to the second half of the 18th century. The development of the family clans of the Dolgorukovs, Linevs, and Kolyubakins in Ustyuzhna Uyezd in the period between the 17th and the 19th centuries is analyzed. It is esbalished that at the end of the 19th century, of the three families to which this article is devoted, only the Kolyubakins still remained among the prosperous landowners of the uyezd. It is noted that the village of Rastoropovo in Ustyuzhna Uyezd, which survived to this day, was the geographical center of the events described in the article. The analysis made it possible to illustrate with specific examples and in detail a number of previously identified patterns in the formation of land ownership in Ustyuzhna Uyezd.

Imperial volost of Udomlya in Bezhetskaya Pyatina of the Novgorod land in the late XV – early XVI centuries: historical-geographical reconstruction in GIS

This article provides the results of research of the territorial arrangement of the largest volost of Udomlya, which belonged to the Novgorod Archbishop prior to Novgorod land was annexed by Moscow. The author conducts localization of the toponymy of volost in accordance to the cadastre of 1498/99, which contained the characteristics of pogosts and dozens volosts. The article leans on the geoinformation technologies. For localization of settlements, the author linked the borders of land dachas and toponymy of the Economic Notes of the late XVIII century. This described the territory of the volost compactly located in northwestern Tver Region of Bezhetskaya Pyatina of the Novgorod land. This article is first to localize the territory of the volost of Udomlya located in northwestern Tver Region of Bezhetskaya Pyatina of the Novgorod land. Characteristic is given to the territories of pogost districts and dozens the volost was divided. The author clarifies the location of the centers of pogosts; most densely populated areas were in the basin of lakes Udomlya and Pesvo and the rivers Sezha and Volchina. It is established that volost included two pogosts – Spassky and Ilyinsky, which ceased to exist as pogost districts by the mid XVI century. The settlement pattern of dozens testifies to the gradual disintegration of the decimar system in volost by the late XV – early XVI centuries.

Природные катаклизмы 1120-х гг. и население запада Новгородской земли

The change in the burial rite and introduction of new funerary practices are explained by Christianization of the populace and appearance of a Christian community. In studies of the emergence of medieval Rus’ burial rite, a feature is discriminated with regard to continuation of the tradition of raising burial mounds. The earliest phase of the formation of the medieval mortuary rites still remains poorly studied since there are practically no reliably dated sites before the mid-11th century. After this date, we find inhumations across the Novgorod Land documenting different variations in the rite but which nevertheless keep within the frame of the Christian norms. As the main rules on the rite of interment set by the Church were complied with, some details of the mortuary practice not regulated by the Orthodox canonic law continued to evolve, drawing on the pre-Christian tradition. Of these, raising of burial mounds was the most prominent. Differences in the method of construction of the burial mounds indicate a partial change in the population which took place in the western area of the Novgorod Land in the second half of the 12th century. Throughout the 13 th century, across this region, the funerary rite becomes much more uniform. Everywhere the kurgan-zhalnik and flat zhalnik cemeteries become widespread. The emergence of a new form of burials may be associated with migration of the population. The reason for the migration, in my opinion, could be the famine that happened in the Novgorod land in the late 1120s.

Языковая репрезентация ценностной картины мира нижегородского старообрядчества на страницах газеты "Ведомости Нижегородской епархии" 1865-1868 гг.

This article is devoted to the linguistic research of journalistic essays devoted to Old Believers published in the newspaper Nizhny Novgorod Diocesan Gazette in 1865-1868. The culture of Old Believers in the middle of the 19th century in the Nizhny Novgorod land was very developed, which is why for several years the newspaper published essays about the history of this movement. The publication formulated its goal as informing and educating the reader, while the target audience of the newspaper was primarily considered to be rural priests. It is interesting that in the pursuit of an objective presentation of historical facts, the newspaper's journalists represent the system of values of dissenters in a peculiar way. The article analyzes the representation of such concepts as "sacrament", "sin" and "crime", and identifies the main value oppositions that express the conflict between the perception of the world by Old Believers and the authors of newspaper essays: "external – internal", "civil – spiritual".

Seigniorial revenue from villages by general norm: two volosts of Smerdy in Derevskaya Pyatina of Novgorod Land of the late XV century

This article analyzes the data described in the most ancient Russian scribal book – Derevskaya Pyatina of Novgorod Land compiled in the early 1499 based on the land documentation of 1495/96 – 1496/97. The object of this research is the records on seigniorial revenue collected from two volosts – Mikhailovskaya Smerda and Berezayskaya Smerda. The choice of these volosts for analysis is explained by accurate dating in scribal books, as well as by the fact that the income of all villages in these two volosts was calculated by general norm. The subject of this research is the correspondence of the description of revenue by villages to the results calculated by the scriber, as well as correlation between the amount of payment collected from the village and the economic indicators of this village. The novelty of this work lies in the analysis of statistical data taking into account that the scribal book of the XV century contains the records of different times: the composition of households and impost of villages were recorded at the time of the scribal description, while the revenue was calculated a little bit later. This explains certain discrepancies between the payment rate applied to the village and its economic characteristics. Special attention is given to verification of statistical record of scribal book for errors, such as miscount. The author suggests that the criterion for defining the rate of return for the village was not an abstract value – taxation in “obzha”, but the number of households that could be easily determined without special competency of the observer. This hypothesis can be tested only in terms of using the proposed methodology for analyzing other lands according to the scribal books of the XV – XVI centuries.

The scribe book of the Tver half of the Bezhetskaya Pyatina in 1545: publication of the source in the web gis environment

The article discusses the experience of online publication of the scribe book of the Tver half of the Bezhetskaya Pyatina of the Novgorod land in 1545 on the NextGIS Web platform. The scribe's Book of 1545 is the most complete source describing the territory of the Tver half of the Bezhetskaya Pyatina of the XVI century. The book reflects the composition of landowners not only of the XVI century, but also of the period of independence of Veliky Novgorod. The paper describes methods of working with the geographical information of the book, creating geodata based on it and ways of presenting them in a web format. Attention is paid to various technical solutions, their strengths and weaknesses are considered. В The novelty of the research lies in a new look at the auxiliary element of the NextGIS Web web map, which is the Description displayed on the functional panel of its interface. The proposed approach turns the interactive geographical pointer accompanying the map into a platform for full-text publication of the source, in which the map performs the function of a container, always ready to display exactly the spatial context in which the geographical object selected by the user exists from the text of the historical source of the source. The main conclusion of the work is the conclusion that the proposed method allows you to combine the transmission of the main elements of the paper publication of the source with the advantages of a modern digital format, expanded due to the cartographic component.

About some outdated folk geographical terms of the west of Novgorod lands

In the article, based on the materials of Novgorod scribe books, the features of the two main semantic groups of toponyms in the west of medieval Novgorod lands are considered — place names indicating the connection of the named object with another object and place names indicating the morphology of the object. The analytical part of the article is preceded by a brief description of the toponymic study of the region and an analysis of the key natural features of the region that affect the nomination of settlements; the article substantiates the geological and geographical informativeness of the names of settlements in medieval Novgorod lands. The author suggests considering a separate group of toponyms of a mixed type – locative-qualitative, especially characteristic of the early stages of the formation of the toponymic picture of the region (the initial fixation of the most place names of the small villages in official state documents). The author's versions of the origin of such bases in toponyms as: lez'e (wing of the bend), kilom (wedge — for a land area isolated by water with a characteristic wedge-shaped shape) are proposed. Also by author's are proposed the locative and qualitative component in the place names of a number of disappeared and preserved villages on the territory of the former Vodskaya Pyatina. Author proposes a version of the appearance of dialect folk geographical terms on the territory of Novgorod lands.

Baltic and Balto-Finnish objects at urban properties of the Lyudin Konets of mediaeval Novgorod (after the materials from the Troitsky excavation)

Finds of objects of Baltic and West-Finnish provenience constitute a small but stable group at the Troitsky excavation and are encountered in layers of the late 10th — first half of the 14th century. Chronological and topographic analysis of this group of objects allowed the researchers to establish the connections of the owners of the urban properties investigated at the Troitsky excavation, with the Eastern Baltic region, North-Western Ladoga and the North-West of the Novgorod Land.